The Journal of Early Adolescence
http://jea.sagepub.com
Family Boundary Ambiguity, Marital Status, and Child Adjustment
Cheryl Buehler and Kay Pasley
The Journal of Early Adolescence 2000; 20; 281
DOI: 10.1177/0272431600020003002
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://jea.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/20/3/281
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JOURNAL
Buehler,
Pasley
OF EARLY
/ FAMILY
ADOLESCENCE
BOUNDARY AMBIGUITY
/ August 2000
Family Boundary Ambiguity, Marital Status,
and Child Adjustment
Cheryl Buehler
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Kay Pasley
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
The association between children’s perceptions of boundary ambiguity and their personal adjustment was examined in a sample of 262 children who lived with their biological parents and 87 children who lived with their single, divorced mothers or their
divorced mothers and stepfathers. Adjustment was assessed by measuring mother and
teacher reports of child problem behaviors and academic performance. The specific
component of boundaries examined was fathers’ psychological and physical presence in
the family. The results did not support the hypothesis that an incongruence between children’s perceptions of fathers’ psychological and physical presence would be associated
with greater adjustment problems in preadolescents and early adolescents. In addition
to testing hypotheses deduced from the boundary ambiguity literature, the independent
roles of children’s perceptions of fathers’ psychological presence and family composition were examined to test competing hypotheses. The family structure perspective
received the most support.
The purpose for this study was to examine the association between family
boundary ambiguity and personal adjustment of preadolescents and early
adolescents. Boundary ambiguity exists in a family when members cannot
determine whether a particular family member is part of the family because
there is an incongruence between the focal member’s physical and psychological presence (Boss, 1988). Boss (1992) further explained boundary
ambiguity:
That is, family members do not know whether a loved one is absent or present.
The “lost” person may be physically present but psychologically absent or
This study was funded in part by a grant from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to the second
author.
Journal of Early Adolescence, Vol. 20 No. 3, August 2000 281-308
© 2000 Sage Publications, Inc.
281
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JOURNAL OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE / August 2000
physically absent but psychologically present. When family members cannot
obtain clear facts surrounding their loss, the system is frozen into place; structural reorganization is blocked; systemic boundaries cannot be maintained. Individuals remain immobilized until they are able to construct a new reality of
who is in and who is out of their family. When a loss remains ambiguous, this
process depends on perceptions. (p. 113)
It is clear from that quotation that two distinct dimensions of family
boundaries exist: physical and psychological (Boss, 1992; Lee, 1995). The
physical dimension is conceptualized as the presence or absence of a particular family member in the household. Typically, the researcher has made the
determination of physical presence or absence. Examples of physical absence have included a husband/father missing in action, a young-adult child
who has gone away to college, or a young child who has died. In the current
study, the physical presence or absence of the father was addressed. Fathers
were focused on because their status in the family potentially is more uncertain than that of mothers. This uncertainty or ambiguity often is rooted in employment-related commitments that can draw fathers away from the family,
and for families in which the parents have separated or divorced, the mother
most frequently has had physical custody of the children (U.S. Bureau of the
Census, 1992b).
Psychological presence has been defined as the “symbolic existence of an
individual in the perceptions of other family members in a way that, or to a
degree that, influences the thoughts, emotions, behavior, identity, or unity of
the remaining family members” (Fravel, Grotevant, Boss, & McRoy, 1993,
p. 13). That definition is consistent with previous interpretations of the concept (Berry, 1990). Psychological presence typically has been assessed using
self-reports. An example of psychological presence is a wife who frequently
thinks about her spouse currently in the military and on deployment. The
Boss original conceptualization and measurement of this construct indicated
that the concept includes cognitive and affective components but that the construct is unidimensional (Boss, 1980). In the present study, the psychological
presence of the biological father was examined.
Theoretically, the ways in which family members perceive and respond to
boundary ambiguity are related to their own adjustment and the functioning
of the family system as a unit (see Boss, 1977, 1987, 1992; Boss & Greenberg,
1984 for a review of these processes). This proposition has received empirical support in studies of adult adjustment to family stressors such as
chronic illness (Boss, Caron, Horbal, & Mortimer, 1990), war-induced absence
(Boss, 1980), employment-induced absence (Boss, McCubbin, & Lester, 1979),
and an adolescent leaving home (Boss, Pearce-McCall, & Greenberg, 1987).
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283
However, none of the studies reviewed had addressed the association
between family boundary ambiguity, as defined by Boss and colleagues, and
children’s adjustment.
Thus, this study was unique in two ways. First, the association between
family boundary ambiguity and children’s adjustment was addressed. Second, children’s perceptions of their biological fathers’ psychological presence were assessed. No existing assessment of fathers’ (or parents’) psychological presence as reported by children was found in the literature. Children
8 through 12 years of age were selected for the study for two reasons: (a)
those children are old enough to be able to think conceptually about the psychological presence of family members (McGurk & Glachan, 1987;
Newman, Roberts, & Syre, 1993), and (b) although there is variability in age
for when children begin to address various identity-related tasks, most children between the ages of 8 and 13 years are not involved extensively in trying
to become completely autonomous from their parents. Thus, the relevance of
a parent’s psychological presence to a child would not be diminished greatly
by children seeking autonomy from their parents.
Marital Status and Boundary Ambiguity
The association between boundary ambiguity and children’s adjustment
was examined for children from divorced, remarried, and nondivorced families. Scholars have suggested that changes in marital status and family
boundary ambiguity are intertwined. Divorce and remarriage represent
potentially stress-inducing transitions in the lives of children and their families (Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992; Kitson & Holman, 1992; Simons,
1996). Those transitions change a family’s structure by altering family composition, boundaries, roles, and rules (Pasley & Ihinger-Tallman, 1982).
When the composition of the family changes because of divorce or remarriage, one of the most significant potential sources of stress is boundary
ambiguity (Emery, 1994). This ambiguity occurs, in part, because the membership status and/or parental functioning of the nonresidential parent might
be uncertain.
Children’s Perceptions of Family Membership
Although there are no studies that have examined children’s perceptions
of fathers’ psychological presence, a few studies have examined children’s
perceptions of fathers’ family membership in the family or children’s emulation of fathers (Furstenberg, 1987; Isaacs, Leon, & Kline, 1987; Isaacs &
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Levin, 1984; McGurk & Glachan, 1987). Perceived membership and emulation might be associated with perceived psychological presence, and therefore, a review of those studies might yield important insight into the concept
of children’s perceptions of family boundary ambiguity.
McGurk and Glachan (1987) studied the perception of the continuity of
parenthood following divorce with 314 British children who ranged from 4
through 15 years of age. Children completed a hypothetical activity in which
they were asked to describe family membership in differing living arrangements using toy people and houses. Most of the children in that study lived
with both parents, so children’s perceptions of parental continuity were based
on their responses during this hypothetical activity. The major finding in that
study was that by 8 years of age, most children perceived that the father was
still a parent even though he lived in a different house. By 10 years of age,
most children were able to distinguish conceptually between adult marital
and parenting roles and thus recognized that a father can still be a parent even
though the spouses have divorced. These cognitive capacities were evident in
children both from intact and divorced families.
Findings of the study conducted by Newman, Roberts, and Syre (1993)
reinforced the idea that by 7 years of age, children can grasp some of the cognitive complexity involved in the process of defining the concept of family
following divorce. They also found that the affective dimension of family
membership (e.g., a family is people who love each other) characterized the
responses of children 12 years of age and older. The affective dimension was
less relevant for children younger than 12 years of age, particularly those 9
years of age and younger.
In a series of two studies, Isaacs and colleagues examined children’s drawings of their divorced families to assess perceived family membership status
of a nonresidential parent (mostly fathers). In the first study of 41 children 5
through 11 years of age, Isaacs and Levin (1984) found that 15% of the children omitted their fathers from the drawing at their first assessment (an average of 7.5 months following marital separation). In the second assessment
(1 year following the first assessment), 22% of the children omitted their
fathers. All of those children lived with their mothers. Even though some of
the mothers had remarried by the second assessment, none of the drawings
included both the biological father and the stepfather. In a second study of
202 children 4 through older than 12 years of age living in divorced families, Isaacs and colleagues (1987) found that children living solely with one
parent more often omitted the nonresidential parent (38%) than did children
living in a joint physical custody arrangement (12%). Omission of the parent was not related to the gender of the nonresidential parent, the remarriage
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status of the residential parent, or the length of time since parental separation. Omission was associated inversely with the frequency of conflict
between parents and the frequency of visitation by the nonresidential
parent.
Finally, Furstenberg (1987) looked beyond perceived family membership
and examined children’s reports of how much they would like to be like one
of their parents when they grow up. Data came from the National Survey of
Children, and the children were 7 through 11 years of age. Furstenberg
reported that 73% of the children living with their mothers and fathers wanted
to be like their fathers when they grew up, whereas only 44% of the children
who lived with their mothers and stepfathers wanted to be like their stepfathers when grown. Furstenberg did not report on children’s perceived emulation of their divorced, biological fathers. Taken together, those four studies
have indicated that marital status affects children’s perceptions of family
membership.
Although those studies provided information on children’s perceptions of
father family membership status following changes in parents’ marital
status, they provided little information regarding children’s perceptions of
their fathers’ psychological presence. This omission has been problematic
because psychological presence of the family member of focus is a central
ingredient of family boundary ambiguity from the Boss perspective (Boss,
1992). In addition, research has been lacking that has been designed for the
examination of the associations among children’s perceptions of family
membership, fathers’ psychological presence or boundary ambiguity, and
children’s psychosocial adjustment problems. Information about this association is needed because it would address the important assumption in the literature on family stress that perceptions of boundary ambiguity are associated negatively with the family members’ adjustment.
Accordingly, the association between children’s perceptions of boundary
ambiguity, with a particular focus on their fathers, and children’s adjustment
was examined in the current study. The study focused on children living in
various family structures because (a) fathers’ psychological absence in
nondivorced families might create ambiguity (Boss, 1986), and (b) changes
inherent in both divorce and remarriage increase the possibility of ambiguous
family boundaries. Adjustment problems were examined because children
who experience marital transitions might manifest their anxiety and confusion through conduct problems, symptoms of depression, or problems in
school performance (Amato & Keith, 1991b), and because Boss (1988) speculated that the presence of family boundary ambiguity places family members at risk for adjustment problems.
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Hypotheses Deduced from the Family Boundary Ambiguity
Perspective Viewed Through the Lens of Marital Status
Data from the National Survey on Families and Households (Sweet,
Bumpass, & Call, 1988) have indicated that children who lived in nondivorced families commonly saw their fathers on a daily or near-daily basis
(Acock & Demo, 1994). Unlike physical presence, however, there might be
variability in fathers’ psychological presence in nondivorced families (Boss,
1986). Some children might feel less connected to, or more indifferent
toward, their fathers and might be less likely to use the father as a cognitive or
emotional referent. Accordingly, the most common pattern of boundary
ambiguity in nondivorced families is likely to result from physical presence
and psychological absence. It would be under this condition of boundary
ambiguity that child behavior problems might manifest (Hypothesis 1). This
differs substantively from ambiguity in divorced families because it would be
based on psychological loss rather than physical loss (Boss, 1986; Lee, 1995).
By comparison, children in divorced families would be most likely to
experience boundary ambiguity characterized by father physical absence and
psychological presence. Ambiguity would be generated by physical loss
rather than psychological loss (Lee, 1995). This condition might place children at risk for maladjustment because they feel psychologically connected
to an important significant other who physically is unavailable or less available (Hypothesis 2). Abandonment issues might characterize these children
(Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989).
Theoretically, a second possible ambiguity scenario in divorced families
would be physical presence (i.e., frequent visitation or contact) and psychological absence. The potential adjustment crisis associated with this condition would be similar to that described for nondivorced families. This type of
ambiguity might predict children’s adjustment problems because of the lack
of psychological connection with the father or the existence of extreme
ambivalence toward the father within the context of continued involvement
(Hypothesis 3).
It is difficult to predict the ways in which the mother’s remarriage following divorce might alter boundary ambiguity as defined by father loss and its
effects on child adjustment problems. Although the focus for this study was
on the biological father and not the stepfather, it was important to examine
whether the presence of a stepfather affects the congruence between physical
and psychological father presence and ultimately the association between
boundary ambiguity and child adjustment (Ganong & Coleman, 1994). The
presence of a stepfather seems to have varying associations with children’s
adjustment. His presence often complicates the parenting process, which
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might be associated with impaired child adjustment (Amato, 1993; Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992). However, he also often provides economic
resources, and his presence in the household provides an additional adult to
help care for and monitor the children. Increased economic well-being and
monitoring are associated with improved child adjustment following remarriage (Amato, 1993; Hao, 1996). These competing forces might balance one
another, and thus the patterns of boundary ambiguity as defined by various
conditions of biological father loss in stepfather families might be similar to
those patterns in divorced, nonremarried families (see Hypotheses 2 and 3).
However, somewhat weaker associations might exist than in divorced families, because for some children, the stepfather’s psychological presence
might compensate for the biological father’s psychological absence, especially for children who afford the stepfather “parental status” (Gamache,
1997) (Hypothesis 4).
Competing Hypotheses: The Independent Roles
of Psychological and/or Physical Presence
Hypotheses derived using the boundary ambiguity perspective indicate
children might be at risk for adjustment problems when there is an incongruence between the physical and psychological aspects of the family system
boundaries. However, other theoretical perspectives, such as symbolic interaction, indicate the hypothesis that psychological presence of father to child
might be associated with fewer adjustment problems, regardless of the level
of physical presence (see Klein & White, 1996, for a review of symbolic
interaction theory). From that perspective, the psychological presence of significant others, such as parents, facilitates the development of a healthy, integrated sense of self and would serve to mitigate adjustment problems
(Hypothesis 5). Specifically, Hypothesis 5 is that the level of father psychological presence would be associated with higher levels of children’s adjustment, independent of father physical presence.
The role of perception is a central idea both in the boundary ambiguity and
symbolic interaction perspectives. However, theoretically, perception in the
boundary ambiguity perspective interacts with physical presence in its association with child adjustment, whereas perception in the symbolic interaction
perspective is directly associated with child adjustment.
There has been some evidence that the father’s physical absence from the
family following divorce places children at risk for adjustment problems
(Amato & Keith, 1991a; Amato & Keith, 1991b; McLanahan & Bumpass,
1988; Simons, 1996). Demo and Acock (1996) have coined the term family
composition perspective to label the proposition that two biological parents
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are better for children’s socialization than one parent or a custodial parent and
a stepparent. From that perspective, children who do not live with both biological parents would be at greater risk for adjustment problems than children
who live with biological parents (Hypothesis 6). Thus, Hypothesis 6 is that
children who live with their fathers would have higher levels of adjustment
than would those not living with their fathers. Demo and Acock and the other
scholars cited previously note that many, but not all, of the effects of divorce
and remarriage on children’s adjustment are mediated by process and contextual variables, such as parenting, interparental conflict, symptoms of maternal depression, economic hardship, and the fairly rapid accumulation of life
events.
In summary, the boundary ambiguity perspective would posit that an incongruence between the father’s physical and psychological presence/
absence places children at risk for adjustment problems. From that perspective, it is the interaction between the physical and psychological aspects of
family system boundaries that is relevant. Other perspectives would posit that
the effects of physical and psychological presence on children’s adjustment
are not contingent on one another. Although the current study was focused
primarily on testing hypotheses derived from a boundary ambiguity perspective, other theoretically plausible scenarios were examined to consider competing perspectives.
METHOD
Sampling
Criteria and procedures. Permission was obtained from the school district
to conduct the study with children enrolled in the fourth through sixth grades
in several schools in Tennessee during 1993 and 1994. Eight principals from
economically diverse schools were asked to participate, and seven agreed.
Following meetings describing the project, about one-half of the homeroom
teachers agreed to participate. The major reason given for nonparticipation
was a lack of time. Although the nonparticipation of almost one-half of the
teachers might raise concerns about the representativeness of the sample, the
practice of random assignment of students to homeroom classrooms in this
school district reduced the chance of systematic bias.
Each child in the participating classrooms took home a parental permission form and a letter introducing the project as a study about family life. Parents were asked to give permission for their child to complete a questionnaire
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during school. By granting permission, each parent also consented to participate in the project by completing a brief mail questionnaire about his or her
child. To be eligible, a child had to live in one of the following three family
situations: (a) two married, biological parents; (b) divorced mother; or (c)
divorced mother and stepfather. Permission and agreement to participate was
obtained from 45% of the solicited parents.
Sample characteristics and representativeness. Data were collected from
349 children. The sample consisted of 181 boys (52%) and 168 girls (48%).
The children ranged in age from 8 through 13 years, but most (99%) were 9
through 12 years of age (X = 10.87, SD = .96). All children were in fourth
(35%), fifth (20%), or sixth (45%) grade.
In terms of living arrangements, 262 (75%) children lived with both biological parents, 58 (17%) lived with their divorced mothers, and 29 (8%)
lived with their divorced mothers and stepfathers. Consequently, 87 (25%)
children were not living with their biological fathers. Of those children, 23
(28%) reported never seeing their fathers, 22 (27%) reported seeing them
every few months, 3 (5%) reported seeing them monthly, 15 (19%) reported
seeing them every couple of weeks, 10 (12%) reported seeing them weekly,
and 7 (9%) reported seeing them two to three times a week. None of the children not living with their fathers reported seeing them every day. (Almost
94% of the children living with their fathers saw them daily, n = 246, X = 6.79,
SD = .98.)
The average number of years living as a divorced, single-parent was 5.5
(SD = 3.45) for the nonremarried group and 3.7 (SD = 2.65) for the remarried
group. The average length of remarriage was 4.42 years (SD = 2.24).
The marital status of this sample was similar to that of the general United
States population. About 19% of European American children in the United
States lived only with their mothers in 1990 (U.S. Bureau of the Census,
1992b). This figure included never-married mothers and widows and, therefore, would be a bit higher than the figure in the present sample of divorced
and separated mothers (17%). About 13% of European American two-parent
families in the United States included a biological mother and stepfather in
1990 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992b). This compared with 10% in the
present sample (29 remarried families/291 two-parent families). Again, the
United States figure also included never-married and widowed women with
children younger than 18 years of age who had married and therefore would
be a bit higher than the figure in the present sample.
The present sample was 93% European American. As such, the sample
underrepresented minority families and the diversity ethnicity can capture.
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Most of the mothers in this sample had completed high school (94%), with
17% also having completed college. About 9% of the mothers had completed
some graduate education, and 11% had received a graduate degree. The present sample had slightly higher levels of educational attainment than did
United States European American women under the age of 40. The United
States Bureau of the Census reported that 88% of European American
women 30 through 39 years of age had completed 4 years of high school and
that 25% also had completed college (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992a).
About 77% of the mothers in the present sample were employed (56%
full-time and 21% part-time). This was slightly higher than the United States
average of 71% for mothers with children 6 through 17 years of age (U.S.
Bureau of the Census, 1991). Mothers’ reports of household income in the
present study were missing a lot of data (23%). Of those who reported their
gross household income, the median income category for married families
was between $35,000 and $49,999 and for divorced mothers was between
$10,000 and $19,999. Although the comparisons were hampered by the use
of income categories, median income in both types of families seemed comparable to incomes in the general population (the 1989 United States median
income was $38,547 for married families and $16,442 for female householder, no-husband-present families) (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1991).
Procedure
The study was introduced to children as a study about family life. All of
the children present the days of the data collection agreed to participate.
Children completed several measures that assessed various perceptions they
hold regarding their parents (N = 349). Only the data on fathers were used in
the present study. Researchers administered the questionnaires to the children in the classrooms; the assessment took about 30 minutes. Mothers were
asked to complete the parent version of the Child Behavior Checklist
(CBCL/4-18) (Achenbach, 1991) and a short demographic information
form. Children took the survey home to their mothers, and each completed
survey was returned by mail. Mothers did not receive a financial incentive for
participation, and this could explain, in part, the fact that 73 of the mothers
did not return their completed questionnaires (21%). As such, mother reports
of child adjustment were available for 276 children.
Teachers were asked to complete the teacher version of the Child Behavior Checklist (TRF) (Achenbach, 1991). Teacher packets from each school
were compiled and returned by mail. Teachers were paid $3 for each com pleted TRF. Unfortunately, in the beginning of the project, teacher data from
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three classrooms were lost in the mail, and only a portion of the data could be
recovered. This resulted in missing teacher data for 43 children (12%).
Thereafter, completed teacher data were retrieved in person. Teacher reports
of children’s adjustment were available for 306 children.
Measurement
Child adjustment. One common approach to assessing child adjustment is
to examine problem behaviors (i.e., adjustment problems). Children’s
internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors were measured using
mother and teacher reports on the appropriate version of the Child Behavior
Checklist (Achenbach, 1991). This measure consists of 112 statements that
describe, in part, the child within the past 6 months. The response format was
0 = not true, 1 = somewhat or sometimes true, and 2 = very true or often true.
Of the 112 items, 33 were used to measure externalizing problems
(Cronbach’s alpha was .91 for mother reports in this sample and .96 for
teacher reports), and 30 were used to measure internalizing problems (alpha
was .88 for mother reports and .85 for teacher reports). The potential range
was 0 to 66 for externalizing problem behaviors and 0 to 60 for internalizing
problem behaviors. Examples of externalizing items were “lies or cheats,”
“runs away from home,” “disobeys at school,” and “teases others a lot.”
Examples of internalizing items were “has aches or pains (other than headaches),” “feels worthless or inferior,” “is unhappy, sad, or depressed,” and
“worries a lot.” This measure has extensive evidence of both reliability and
validity and is the most commonly used assessment of children’s adjustment
(Achenbach, 1991). There were no missing data.
Academic grades and the child’s general school adjustment also were
indicators of child’s adjustment. The Child Behavior Checklist included a
section on academic success in up to seven subjects. The response format was
0 = failing, 1 = below average, 2 = average, or 3 = above average. A mean
score was calculated to indicate overall academic performance in the subject
matter areas of school life. The TRF also includes a measure of academic performance. The response format was 1 = far below grade through 5 = far
above grade. The TRF also includes four general questions regarding how
the child is doing in school (e.g., “How hard is he/she working?”). The
7-point response format ranged from 1 = much less than other students his or
her age through 7 = much more than other students his or her age. A mean
score was calculated, and higher scores indicated higher adjustment. This
measure was labeled “general school adjustment.” Cronbach’s alpha was .90
in this sample of children.
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Psychological presence. Children completed the Psychological Presence
of Father to Child Scale (Pasley & Buehler, 1991). This scale assesses the
psychological dimension of boundary ambiguity by determining to what
extent the child thinks of his or her biological father and uses him as a cognitive referent in decision making. The scale consists of 8 items and has a
3-point response format that ranges from 1 = never through 3 = lots of the
time. Items include “How often do you think about what is best for your
father?”; “How often do you think about your father?”; “How often do you
look forward to hearing from your father?”; “How often do you think about
what your father is doing?”; “How often do you look forward to seeing your
father?”; “How often do you think about where your father is?”; “How often
do you wish your father was more involved in helping you make decisions?”;
and “How often do you think of yourself as your father’s child?” A mean
score was created, and higher scores indicated greater psychological presence of the biological father to the target child.1 Prior to administration, the
scale was assessed for readability and was deemed appropriate for use with
children as young as 9 years of age (i.e., third grade). Following administration, a 9th item was dropped from the scale because children in the fourth
grade were having difficulty understanding the question (i.e., “How often
does your relationship with your father influence your plans?”).
The measure was pilot-tested on a sample of 44 children living in divorced
and intact families in Colorado. The sample included 25 males (57%) and 19
females (43%). Ages ranged from 8 through 15 years (X = 11.39, SD = 2.53).
Twenty children (46%) were from divorced families, and 24 (54%) were from
nondivorced families. Cronbach’s alpha was .83. There were no differences
between boys’ and girls’ responses, t(40) = –.19; p = .85. Evidence of concurrent
validity was provided by analyses that showed that children in nondivorced
families reported higher levels of father psychological presence than children
living in divorced, mother-custody families t(38) = –4.56, p < .001.
In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha was .84 for children in nondivorced
families, .92 for children in divorced families (mother custody), and .91 for
children in remarried families (stepfather present). Additional documentation of validity is evident in these data. Children who lived with their fathers
reported higher psychological presence (nondivorced X = 2.50, SD = .40)
than those children who did not live with them (divorced X = 2.23, SD = .65;
remarried X = 2.25, SD = .61) (F = 9.58; df = 2, 338; p < .0001). Also, as
expected theoretically, responses on psychological presence were more variable for children who did not live with their fathers than for those children
who lived with them. Finally, the measure of father psychological presence
correlated .67 (p < .01) with a 4-item measure of positive regard for the father
(Fine, Worley, & Schwebel, 1985), providing evidence of convergent validity.
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It is important to recognize that this measure of psychological presence
combined both cognitive and affective elements, with a heavier emphasis on
the cognitive elements. In terms of content validity, this was appropriate and
even necessary given findings of Newman and colleagues (1993) that affective elements of the definition of family were not as relevant for most children
until 13 years of age.
Physical presence. The physical dimension of boundary ambiguity was
assessed by a question on the mother’s questionnaire to determine the frequency of contact the child has with the biological father. The 7-point
response format ranged from 1 = never through 7 = daily. The mean
responses to this scale were reported by father’s residential status in the previous section in which the sample was described.
RESULTS
Boundary Ambiguity Hypotheses
The means and standard deviations of variables are in Table 1, as are the
zero-order correlations between father psychological presence and children’s adjustment indices. Testing ideas deduced from the literature on family boundary ambiguity, the first hypothesis of this study was that father’s
psychological presence in nondivorced families would be associated with
favorable child adjustment. This hypothesis was based on the idea that low
psychological presence scores from children who lived with their fathers
would indicate ambiguous boundaries and place those children at risk for
adjustment problems. This hypothesis was tested using hierarchical multiple
regression with each measure of child adjustment: (a) mother reports of internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and grades; and (b) teacher
reports of internalizing problems, externalizing problems, grades, and general school adjustment. The independent variables were children’s perception of father psychological presence, child gender, and the interaction
between father psychological presence and child gender. The interaction
term was created using centered variables (for any continuous variable), and
the main effects were entered in the first block of variables, followed by the
interaction term in the second block (Aiken & West, 1991). Father’s physical
presence was not included in the equation, because as expected, there was
almost no variability on the measure.
The boundary ambiguity hypothesis was not supported for this group of
children living with their married parents (see Table 2). Father psychological
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presence was not correlated with children’s problem behaviors or general
school adjustment. Contrary to the hypothesis, psychological presence
was correlated inversely with mother and teacher reports of children’s
grades. In this case, more ambiguous boundaries (i.e., father physical
presence and lower psychological presence) were associated with better
grades (although the overall equation was not significant for either mother
or teacher reports).
As with all other regression analyses conducted in this study, the residuals
were examined to check whether the basic assumptions required for the
regression calculations were met. All of the patterns of residuals indicated
that the models fit the data except for the prediction of teacher reports of
grades. Follow-up analyses indicated that there was a significant curvilinear
association between fathers’ psychological presence and teacher reports of
children’s grades. This curvilinear pattern existed after the linear component
was removed. The nonlinear pattern approximated a bell-shaped curve, and
children who reported average levels of fathers’ psychological presence had
the best grades (the top of the curve).
Finally, it might be that children only with extremely low psychological
presence scores are at risk for adjustment difficulties. This possibility was
examined by dividing the sample of children into two groups: (a) those with
psychological presence scores one standard deviation below the mean, and
(b) everyone else. The seven adjustment scores were compared across groups
using two-way analysis of variance. The variables were father psychological
presence (very low, other) and child gender. None of the main effects for
father psychological presence were significant, nor were any of the interactions between psychological presence and child gender. In summary, there
was no support for the idea that children who lived in nondivorced families
with more ambiguous boundaries (as defined by the father’s psychological
presence for one of the children in the family) had greater adjustment
problems.
The second through fourth hypotheses also were deduced from the
boundary ambiguity literature. The hypotheses stated that an incongruence
between father psychological presence and physical presence would place
children in divorced and remarried families at risk for adjustment difficulties.
The theory posits that adjustment difficulties would occur in both types of
families; however, as described in a previous section, the effects might not be
as strong in remarried families as in divorced families. These hypotheses
were tested with the combined data from divorced and remarried families.
Each child adjustment indicator was regressed on (a) Block 1—father psy chological presence, father physical presence (i.e., frequency of physical
contact), marital structure (i.e., divorced, remarried); (b) Block 2—the three
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first-order interactions; and (c) Block 3—the one second-order interaction
(all continuous variables were centered before the interaction terms were created). Within the context of boundary ambiguity, the relevant variables are
the first-order interaction term between father physical and psychological
presence and the second-order interaction term between father physical and
psychological presence and marital status. The sample size was too small to
include child gender in this analysis.
None of the boundary ambiguity interaction terms were significant for
children’s internalizing problems or grades (see rows 4 and 7 of Table 3). One
interaction term was significant when predicting children’s externalizing
problems: father physical and psychological presence. The pattern depicted
by this interaction did not support the boundary ambiguity hypothesis
derived for this study. Children who saw their fathers more often than average
and thought about them more often (but did not live with them) had more
behavior problems. For the children who saw their fathers less often than
average, thinking about them was associated with fewer behavior problems.
The Independent Role of Father Psychological Presence
Hypothesis 5 stated that children’s perception of fathers’ psychological
presence would be associated with better adjustment, regardless of fathers’
levels of physical presence. As already reported in the previous section, this
hypothesis was not supported in nondivorced families. Father psychological presence was not associated with children’s internalizing problems,
externalizing problems, or general school adjustment (see row 1 of Table 2).
Contrary to the hypothesis, father psychological presence was inversely
related to grades (mother report) or related in a curvilinear pattern (teacher
report).
Moving to children who did not live with their fathers, this hypothesis was
not supported either in divorced or stepfather families. Father psychological
presence was not associated with any of the indicators of children’s adjustment (see row 1 of Table 3). None of the interactions between father psychological presence and marital status were significant either (see row 5 of
Table 3). This means that the lack of association between father psychological presence and children’s adjustment existed for children both in divorced
and stepfather families in this sample.
The Independent Role of Living With Father
Hypothesis 6 was that children who did not live with their two biological
parents would be more poorly adjusted than children living in nondivorced
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families (i.e., the family composition hypothesis). This hypothesis was tested
using a two-way analysis of covariance. The two factors were family structure (nondivorced, divorced, remarried) and child gender (son, daughter).
Psychological presence of father was the covariate.
Family structure was associated with six of seven indicators of child’s
adjustment (see Table 4). The mean score for mothers’ reports of child internalizing problem behaviors was 6.47 for the nondivorced group, 10.55 for the
divorced group, and 6.95 for the stepfather group. The mean scores for mothers’ reports of child externalizing problem behaviors was 7.99 for the
nondivorced group, 11.50 for the divorced group, and 10.71 for the stepfather
group. The mean scores for mothers’ reports of children’s grades was 2.51 for
the nondivorced group, 2.18 for the divorced group, and 2.32 for the stepfather group (scale 0 through 3). The mean score for teachers’ reports of child
internalizing problem behaviors was 2.62 for the nondivorced group, 4.18 for
the divorced group, and 3.14 for the stepfather group. The mean score for
teachers’ reports of child externalizing problem behaviors was 3.44 for the
nondivorced group, 5.02 for the divorced group, and 10.86 for the stepfather
group. The mean score for teachers’ reports of children’s grades was 3.18 for
the nondivorced group, 2.61 for the divorced group, and 2.94 for the stepfather group. The mean score for teachers’ reports of child school-related
behavior was 4.54 for the nondivorced group, 3.96 for the divorced group,
and 3.74 for the stepfather group.
A statistical examination of the means across the nondivorced, divorced,
and remarried couples revealed conditional support for the family composition hypothesis. In general, children living in nondivorced families had the
highest adjustment scores, whereas children living with their divorced, single
mothers had the lowest adjustment scores.
Children living with their divorced, single mothers had more internalizing
problems (both mother and teacher reports) and externalizing problems
(mother report). Children living with stepfathers scored in between children
living in nondivorced and divorced families on these indicators of adjustment, but the mean score for their group did not differ from the mean scores
of the other two groups.
Children living with their divorced, single mothers or with stepfathers had
lower grades and lower general school adjustment than children living with
nondivorced parents (both mother and teacher reports of adjustment). Thus,
the family composition hypothesis was supported fully in the area of academic performance and adjustment.
Children’s externalizing problems from the teacher’s perspective showed
a different pattern from other indicators of adjustment. On this measure, children living with stepfathers had more externalizing problems than did other
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children. This was the only indicator of adjustment in which there was no difference between children living with divorced, single mothers and children
living with nondivorced parents.
In addition, child gender was associated with externalizing problems
(sons were reported both by teachers and mothers to have higher externalizing problem behaviors than daughters). None of the interaction terms
between family structure and child gender were significant.
In summary, there was little support for the hypotheses deduced from the
family boundary ambiguity perspective or for the idea that fathers’ psychological presence would be associated with better child adjustment. There was
support for the family composition hypothesis, with the caveat that living
with a stepfather might facilitate adjustment a bit, particularly with respect to
children’s manifestation of fewer internalizing problems at home and school
and fewer externalizing problems at home.
DISCUSSION
The results from this study did not support the idea that an incongruence
between a father’s physical presence and his son’s or daughter’s perception of
his psychological presence places the child at risk for adjustment problems.
There are several possible explanations for this lack of support for the significance of boundary ambiguity. First, there might have been inadequate statistical power to isolate a significant interaction between father’s physical and
psychological presence. This sample was fairly representative (except of
minority families), but the sample size of 87 families in which the father lived
outside of the home might not have been large enough to identify a significant
statistical interaction (Aiken & West, 1991).
From a theoretical perspective, incongruence as a fundamental aspect of
boundary ambiguity might not be appropriate when considering children’s
perceptions of their family lives. Incongruence from children’s perspectives
might not be stressful. In nondivorced families, children might not expect
high levels of psychological connections with their father. They just might be
glad he is around physically. If this is the case, then low psychological presence of the father does not violate role expectations and would not create
stress or conflict. It also might be that the general quality of the father’s
parenting is more relevant and proximal to children’s adjustment than children’s perceptions of his psychological presence. Specifically, the father’s
provision of support or acceptance, consistent and fair discipline, and adequate monitoring might be more central to children’s adequate development
(B. L. Barber, 1994; B. K. Barber & Olsen, 1997; Burman, John, & Margolin,
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1987). Additional research is needed that includes assessments of both children’s perceptions of fathers’ psychological presence and parenting. That
research could isolate significant and unique correlates of fathers’ involvement in children’s lives and children’s adjustment.
In divorced or remarried families in which the biological father does not
see his child often, a child’s perception of psychological presence might
comfort him or her during times of physical separation (Furstenberg & Nord,
1985). It also might be that, from the child’s perspective, just knowing he or
she has a father is enough to ameliorate major feelings of ambiguity or distress. This sense of knowing might translate into psychological presence.
This would be a more passive form of presence than that measured in the
present study. In divorced or remarried families in which the father sees his
child more often, the child’s psychological connection to the father might not
be as relevant. Again, the child just might be pleased about his or her father’s
continued involvement and/or the supportive parenting he or she has received
from the father during these periods of contact (B. L. Barber, 1994; Emery &
Forehand, 1994).
Thus, the findings from this study might call into question the perceptual
characteristics of children’s beliefs regarding a parent’s psychological presence or of ambiguity within the family system. It might be that children do
not believe a father’s physical absence is ambiguous or stressful as long as
they continue to consider him a family member. It also might be that the emotional valence of the elements of psychological presence is important. Three
of the items in the measure of psychological presence used in the current
study had a positive valence, and the rest were neutral. Perhaps the results
would differ if the valence of the items were more negative. Thus, the lack of
significant findings regarding the incongruence between children’s perceptions of fathers’ physical and psychological presence might signal a need to
reformulate some of the basic theoretical assumptions of the family boundary
ambiguity hypothesis.
There was some indication in the results that adjustment problems are
associated with high father physical and psychological presence postdivorce;
that is, congruence rather than incongruence in the family boundary characteristics. The children in this study who reported high father physical and
psychological presence had mothers who reported higher levels of children’s
externalizing problems. This might have reflected some emotional distress
by these children because they often saw and were very connected psychologically to their fathers and yet their parents had divorced. The child did not
live with a parent with whom he or she was highly connected. Divorce under
those conditions might have been frustrating to the child, and some of that
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frustration might have been expressed at home as increased aggression.
However, these were correlational data, and the expla nation also might
lie in the effect that children’s misbehavior had on paternal involvement
postdivorce. It might be that fathers had become more involved with their
children when the children had displayed patterned misbehavior. Mothers
and fathers both might have wanted the father to be more involved in his
child’s life with the intention of ameliorating the behavior problems. Longitudinal data would be needed to examine these linkages more carefully. Also,
it is important to note that these interpretations are speculative and “great
caution must be exercised about drawing conclusions about children’s relationships with their nonresidential parents when so much has gone unmeasured in research to date” (Emery, 1994, p. 211).
Another possible explanation for the lack of support for the potentially
detrimental effect of boundary ambiguity is that children’s perceptions of
psychological presence might be less important than the mother’s perceptions of boundary ambiguity. Mothers might serve as a filter or buffer for children in terms of their connection to their fathers. For example, Boss (1977)
found that the mother’s ability to work through the loss associated with a military husband missing in action affected children’s adjustment to his absence.
To the extent that the mother is the primary socializer in both divorced and
nondivorced families, her ability to cope and function with stress and ambiguity might mediate the association between marital change and children’s
adjustment (Simons, 1996). In most of the previous research by Boss and colleagues, the primary caretaker’s perceptions of the psychological presence of
the “lost” family member were assessed. Researchers could examine the relevance of the mother’s perceptions of her husband’s or former husband’s psychological presence. Her perception of the psychological presence of her
husband, particularly a former husband, might be associated with increased
psychological distress and disrupted parenting (Kitson & Holman, 1992). In
turn, increased psychological distress and disrupted parenting consistently
have been associated with children’s adjustment problems (Simons, 1996).
Finally, there might be a need to revise some of the basic tenets of family
boundary ambiguity theory, particularly the concept of incongruence. Incongruence might not have much meaning in nondivorced families, although
clearly the father’s emotional availability is an area in need of further
research. It might be that the important feature with regard to psychological
loss is the incapacitation in terms of parenting that accompanies parents’
mental illness, such as dementia or severe clinical depression. In the case of
divorce, family membership might be much more important than household
membership. This issue was addressed to some extent in this study by includ-
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ing the frequency of paternal visitation, but it is clear that the supposition of
incongruence needs refinement within the context of divorce and remarriage.
There also was little support for the idea that children’s perceptions of
father psychological presence would be associated independently with children’s problem behaviors. The one significant finding indicated that father
psychological presence was associated inversely with grades in nondivorced
families. In this case, it might be that poor grades have prompted the father’s
involvement in the child’s life. Fathers might be increasing their monitoring
behaviors of the their children’s studying and homework time. Some of this
monitoring might be increasing the child’s awareness of his or her father’s
cognitive influence, presence, or attempts to change the child’s academic
behavior and standing. It also might be that success in school is a concrete
activity of the child on which the father can focus to increase involvement in
his child’s life. However, the father’s psychological presence, in this case,
might have been perceived by the child as intrusive. Father’s intrusiveness
was associated inversely with academic achievement by 8-year-olds in a
recent study reported by Gottman, Katz, and Hooven (1997).
The lack of association between father psychological presence and children’s internalizing problems in divorced or remarried families might indicate that the measure of psychological presence used in this study did not
reflect pining or preoccupation. Children who reported high psychological
presence did not have higher levels of sadness, depression, anxiety, and withdrawal that often accompany intense pining and preoccupation with the loss
(albeit partial loss in some families) of a significant other (Wallerstein &
Blakeslee, 1989). This is an important finding and could be used to better
address content validity issues in further research on children’s perceptions
of family boundary ambiguity.
The results from this study show that the strongest associations were
between family structure and children’s problem behaviors. For the most
part, children who lived with their biological parents had fewer behavior
problems and better general adjustment in school than children who lived
with divorced parents or with mothers who had remarried. These findings are
compatible with those of Demo and Acock (1996) and reaffirmed the
importance of family structure and economic well-being in contemporary
United States society (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997). Amato (1993) suggested that these structural differences can be attributed largely to the
absence of the nonresidential parent, the adjustment of the residential parent
(including parenting), interparental conflict, economic hardship, and the
accumulation of stressful life changes. The findings from the present study
indicated that the psychological absence of the nonresidential parent is not a
primary reason for the adjustment differences in children living in differing
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family structures. As such, the results from this study helped to rule out one of
the possible mediating explanations of the modest association between
divorce and children’s adjustment problems.
Follow-up analyses were conducted to understand better the differences
that were obtained in children’s adjustment scores across nondivorced,
divorced (mother custody), and stepfather families. Each indicator of adjustment was reanalyzed using analysis of covariance. The three categories of
family structure composed the factor, and three covariates were included:
household income, child’s age, and child’s perception of mother’s psychological presence. Income was the significant covariate, and controlling for
differences in economic well-being eliminated all adjustment differences
across groups, except for differences found in teachers’ reports of children’s
externalizing problem behaviors. These follow-up analyses were limited to
those families for whom income data were available (n = 265, 73% of the
sample). The child’s age and mother’s psychological presence were not
significant.
The findings in this study were limited by some of the sampling and data
collection procedures. The parental permission rate was only 45%, and this
might have biased the findings. This potential source of bias might not be a
major concern, because comparisons with the United States census data indicated that the sample was comparable to the relevant portion of the general
population in terms of marital status, educational level, and income. However, minority families were underrepresented (only 7%), and so the findings
should be generalized with caution to families of color. The maternal
response rate was 79%, and this self-selection also might have biased the
results if nonresponse was correlated with assessments of child adjustment or
children’s perceptions of father psychological presence. Further research
would be served by offering financial incentives that would increase the
parental participation rate. The response rate for teacher data was 88%, and
follow-up analyses indicated that these data were missing at random. The
limitation of the relatively small sample size of children not living with their
fathers (87) already has been noted in the previous discussion regarding concerns about inadequate power.
With these limitations in mind, it also is important to note a strength of the
study. The results from this study did not result from common method variance, an insidious problem that plagues much of the research on children and
their parents (Bank, Dishion, Skinner, & Patterson, 1989). Data on boundary
ambiguity were collected from children, whereas the assessments of child
adjustment came from mothers and teachers. This greatly reduced the chances
of significant findings that were due to shared method variance.
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Although there was little support for the relevance of incongruity between
father’s physical and psychological presence in this sample of children, several of the findings provided important information for further research on
boundary ambiguity from children’s perspectives, as highlighted in this discussion. Evidence has been provided that the lack of findings on incongruence
most likely did not emerge because of poor sampling or because of inadequate
measurement. Thus, both the significant and null findings can be used to provide data for further theoretical reformulations and subsequent research.
NOTE
A high score on the item regarding father involvement in child decision making reflects the
child’s consideration of the father as a referent in the decision-making process. Even though the
child might desire more paternal involvement, a high score on this item still reflects the child’s
use of the father as a cognitive referent.
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Requests for reprints should be addressed to Cheryl Buehler, Child and Family Studies, JHB 115, University
of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-1900; e-mail: [email protected].
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